• Journal of Auto-vehicle Safety Association
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.30-34
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• 2021

Electrical failures and reliability problems of electronic components by ionic migration between adjacent device terminals have become an issue in automotive electronics. Especially unlike galvanic corrosion, ionic migration is occurred at high temperature and high humidity under applied electric field condition. Until now, although extensive studies of the ionic migrations dealing with PCBs, electrodes, and solders were reported, there is no study on the effect of insulation polymers and metallic fillers for ionic migration. In this research, therefore, ionic migration induced by the types and contents of polymers and metallic fillers, and variety conditions of temperature, humidity, and applied voltage was studied in detail. Ester and amide types of liquid crystal polymer (LCP) and poly (phthalamide) (PPA) were used as base polymers, respectively and compounded with the metallic fillers of Copper iodide (CuI), Zinc stearate (Zn-st), or Calcium stearate (Ca-st) in various compositions. The compounding polymers were fabricated in IPC-B-24 of SIR test coupon according to ISO 9455-17 with Cu electrodes for ionic migration test. While there is no change in LCP-based samples, ionic migration in PPA compounding sample with a high water absorption property was accelerated in the presence of 0.25 wt% or above of CuI at the environmental conditions of 85℃, 85% RH and 48V. The dendritic short-circuit growth of Cu caused by ionic migration between the electrodes on the surface of compounded polymers was systematically observed and analyzed by using optical microscopy and SEM (EDX).